Doctor Who's New Companion

Keen As Mustard On Coleman

Doctor Who was back with a bang, some zombies, a planet populated by ASBO Daleks and best of all, a surprise glimpse of the new companion. Not only was Jenna-Louise Coleman captivatingly charismatic but she should get non-geek grown-up males switching over from the sports channels, lowering their broadsheets and peering over their pizza box lids. I’m surprised the Doctor’s bowtie didn’t start spinning round. You know, like Frank Butcher’s did when he turned up on Fat Pat’s doorstep naked. God rest their souls and wrinkly bits.

Despite big fat fibs over the past few months from Whopremo Steven Moffat that former Emmerdale starlet Coleman wouldn’t arrive until the Christmas special, she made an early debut as Oswin, the sole survivor of a crashed spaceship on the Daleks’ prison planet. She spent this excellent episode - the best for a couple of years, in my book - bounding around in a red dress with tomboyish toolbelt (totes Tank Girl-meets-Wonder Woman), listening to loud opera, cooking soufflés (subliminal cross-promotion for The Great British Bake-Off, perhaps) and being a computer hacking genius.

She resembled Fearne Cotton crossed with Isla Fisher, only fitter and less annoying. She was funny, feisty, fearless, fast-talking, hinted at a bisexual back-story and should be a good match for "chin boy" Matt Smith. Jenna-Louise Coleman has already displaced Justin Lee Collins as TV’s favourite JLC. Good toimes.

Elsewhere on the Timelord’s blockbuster return, the opening credits got an Instagram-ish redesign, Karen Gillan was leggily great as ever, Arthur Darvill delivered his best and wittiest performance yet, and both The Doctor and Rory seemed to have had a makeover down the hipster department of Urban Outfitters. Despite allegedly being the meanest race in the universe, the Daleks still couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo (if you ever get a chance to play one at Laser Quest, say yes). Moffat’s superb script contained twists, turns, soppy bits, explodey-wodey wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff and several actu-LOLZ. It was like a mini-movie and pure joy from moody start to magnificently camp finish.

Gillan bids the Tardis farewell at the end of this month, then Coleman will be back full-time from Christmas onwards. Just two little problems here: as revealed in the final act, she’s currently a Dalek. And a dead one at that. So can the Doctor somehow revive and re-humanise her? Will he go back in time? Run into her twin sister instead? Or will the solution prove a lot cleverer than that? Knowing Moffat, probably the latter. Saturday’s sneak peek of Coleman got solid ratings of 7m. Expect male viewer figures to gradually rise in 2013, while metaphorical bow ties whizz round.

Channel 4's Paralymics coverage is no Beeb but not badIt was a belting weekend of Paralympic action, with Ellie Simmonds, Richard Whitehead (above) and David Weir providing “something in my eye” golden moments, while Oscar Pissedoffius proved a bad loser. But what of Channel 4’s coverage of the Games? Sadly you can’t help making comparisons with the Beeb’s triumphant Olympics and this simply isn’t in the same ballpark. Sure, it’s a smaller operation with stingier budgets, but there’s too much chat in the soulless, windowless studio and not enough actual sport.

The ad breaks annoy after we got spoilt by the BBC’s uninterrupted broadcasts. Presenters and pundits aren’t as slick, plus so scared to say the wrong thing that it’s made them painstakingly PC and po-faced. Well, apart from Georgie Bingham who asked paralysed athlete Arthur Williams as he squeezed into a racing wheelchair, “Does it hurt?” only to get the reply: “No, because I can’t feel my legs.” Still, Clare Balding’s great as ever, comedian Adam Hills’ cheeky late night show is excellent and the spectacle’s the thing. Fair play to Channel 4 for screening 400 hours of inspirational sport – at a financial loss, too. They've also just extended it across the daytime schedules, due to strong ratings averaging 3.3m. The Paralympics haven’t quite gripped the nation like last month’s extravaganza, sure, but they’ve been enthralling, emotional and another event to be proud of.

Hidden cameras and bent coppersJust time for a quick verdict on two other new shows, which have little in common apart from their cool soundtracks. Dom Joly's Fool Britannia is ITV1's latest bid to find some family-friendly silliness to fill the TV Burp-shaped gap in their Saturday evening schedules. It's a hidden camera prank show - kinda Trigger Happy with bromide in its tea - but good-natured enough, as Joly dons prosthetics to play ASBO vicars, rude bouncers, blood-thirsty butchers and Health & Safety jobsworths. Curiously old-fashioned, like a Beadle throwback, yet it's set to a breezy indie tunes and passes by pretty pleasantly.

Altogether more grown-up is new BBC drama Good Cop, which sees the excellent Warren Brown (a supporting actor in the likes of Luther and Inside Men) get his first leading role as a Scouse plod who goes off the rails and gets sucked into gangland. It's a bit unremittingly bleak - his partner gets brutally killed, his dad's dying, there's a cot death just for good measure - but strongly played and stylishly made, with a trip-hoppy Tricky soundtrack. Steven Graham also pops up to do another one of his turns as a scarily believable psycho. Well worth a look on iPlayer if you missed it. Just don't expect much in the way of ROFLy light relief.